A burned body found near Interstate 10 in Redlands about 10
months ago has been identified as a 49-year-old Fontana-area
steelworker.

Redlands police used fingerprints to verify that Craig Kenneth
Kubitz was killed in what police are investigating as a homicide,
according to a news release.

Authorities released a photograph of the man and the car he was
known to have been driving before his death in hopes that the
public may have information about Kubitz and whoever drove his car
after his death, abandoning it along Highway 18 in the San
Bernardino Mountains.

Sgt. Mark Hardy, a Redlands police detective, said investigators
are not releasing the cause of death.

Kubitz had lived at several locations in the Fontana and
Bloomington area and worked at a Fontana steel plant, Hardy said.
He had family members in Chicago and Arizona who "had not heard
from him," Hardy said.

He is believed to have last spoken to a friend at 5 p.m. Feb.
18, five days before the burning body was discovered at Reservoir
Road and Wabash Avenue, not far from I-10.

Hardy said Kubitz had been using a red 1992 Volkswagen Jetta,
license plate 4GCP525, last registered in 2006 to a private party
who police do not believe was involved in the killing. The car had
been used by several owners who had not registered it, he said.

Two days after the body was discovered, a California Highway
Patrol officer found the car abandoned along Highway 18 near
Crestline.

Hardy said there have been several incidents of bodies having
been dumped in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, but police
are not saying whether they suspect Kubitz's death is related to
any other homicide.

"We are hoping that people in the Fontana area will come forward
with information about the victim," the detective said. "We also
hope that someone saw the car" being driven after Kubitz's
death.

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